No one understands you, and what to do about it Quotes

“The uncomfortable truth is that most of us don’t come across the way we intend. We can’t see ourselves truly objectively, and neither can anyone else. Human beings have a strong tendency to distort other people’s feedback to fit their own views. We know this intellectually, and yet we rarely seem to recognize it as it’s happening.”
― Heidi Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It

“People don't just want to be seen positively by others - they want to be seen the way they see themselves. Psychologists call this the desire for self-verification...”
― Heidi Grant Halvorson, No one understands you, and what to do about it

“If you have ever felt yourself underestimated or misjudged, if you have stepped on toes without meaning to and been called to task for it, if you have wanted to cry out “That’s not fair!” when false and hurtful assumptions have been made about you, I’m here to tell you that you are right. The way we see one another is far from fair. In fact, much of this process of perceiving other people, as you’ll soon discover, isn’t even rational. It is biased, incomplete, and inflexible. It is also largely (but not entirely) automatic.”
― Heidi Grant Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It

“I suppose the one problem I haven’t figured out a good solution for—the one that keeps coming up again and again—is how I come across to other people. I get the feeling that sometimes people think I’m being critical, or aloof, or disengaged, and that’s not at all my intention. But I don’t know how to fix it, because I don’t understand what they are seeing. If there was a book about that, one that was based on evidence and not just bullshit, I would read it.”
― Heidi Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It

“Without the ability to consistently and accurately telegraph our thoughts and intentions to others, none of us can succeed—no individual, no team, and no organization. Communication is vital, but the great irony is that human beings have a surprisingly difficult time when it comes to knowing what exactly they are communicating.”
― Heidi Grant Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It

“Research shows that eye contact, nodding, and smiling are the three key physical indicators of warmth. Research also shows that people generally have no idea when they are not doing these things, so you might want to ask your friends and family if this is something you need to work on.9”
― Heidi Grant Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It

“Studies suggest that in order to figure out whether you are trustworthy, others analyze your words and deeds to find the answers to two questions: Do you have good intentions toward me—are you a friend or a foe? Do you have what it takes to act on those intentions?”
― Heidi Grant Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It

“Human thought, like every other complex process, is subject to the speed-versus-accuracy trade-off. Go fast, and you make mistakes. Be thorough and diligent, and you take an eternity. We are, as Fiske later called us, motivated tacticians—strategically choosing ease and speed, or effort and accuracy, depending on our motivation. Most of the time, just the gist will do, so we choose speed.”
― Heidi Grant Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It

“In the 1980s, psychologists Susan Fiske and Shelly Taylor were looking for a way to describe what research was showing to be a ubiquitous tendency among humans: to think only as much as they feel they need to, and no more. And so the metaphor of the cognitive miser was born, with each of us an Ebenezer Scrooge—except instead of sitting on piles of money and refusing to pay for an extra lump of coal to keep the house warm, we sit on reserves of mental energy and processing capacity, unwilling to spend much of it unless we really have to. We rely on simple, efficient thought processes to get the job done—not so much out of laziness (though there is some of that, too), but out of necessity. There is just too much going on, too much to notice, understand, and act on, for us to give every individual and every occurrence our undivided, unbiased attention. So not only are you innately hard to understand, but the people observing you are hoarding their attention.”
― Heidi Grant Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It

“Key Takeaways We don’t communicate nearly as much information as we think we do. When you say, “He knows what I meant” or “I made myself clear,” chances are, he doesn’t and you didn’t. Our faces are not nearly as expressive as we think they are; mild boredom can look an awful lot like mild interest or mild concern. We fall prey to two assumptions: (1) that other people see us objectively as we are and (2) that other people see us as we see ourselves. In fact, our perceivers don’t even agree with each other on what they see in us. There are two main reasons we’re so hard to understand: First, no one is actually an open book. And second, our actions are always subject to interpretation.”
― Heidi Grant Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It

“the great irony is that human beings have a surprisingly difficult time when it comes to knowing what exactly they are communicating.”
― Heidi Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It

“... they compared two versions of Facebook ads for a real stand-up comedian. In the first version, critics said he "could be the next big thing" and that "in a year, everybody could be talking about him." The ad that focused on his potential got significantly more clicks and likes.”
― Heidi Grant Halvorson, No one understands you, and what to do about it

“of warmth and competence account for roughly 90 percent of the variability in whether you are perceived positively or negatively by others.”
― Heidi Grant Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It

“One of the most troubling findings in all of psychology has to be the fact that narcissists and psychopaths often make really good first impressions.”
― Heidi Grant Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It

“The uncomfortable truth is that most of us don’t come across the way we intend. We can’t see ourselves truly objectively, and neither can anyone else.”
― Heidi Grant Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It

“Leaders should always be careful to prioritize warmth, not competence, when trying to inspire trust and loyalty.”
― Heidi Grant Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It

“Human beings have a strong tendency to distort other people’s feedback to fit their own views. We know this intellectually, and yet we rarely seem to recognize it as it’s happening.”
― Heidi Grant Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It

“Your posture, like it or not, tells people a lot about you.”
― Heidi Grant Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It

“Without the ability to consistently and accurately telegraph our thoughts and intentions to others, none of us can succeed—no individual, no team, and no organization. Communication is vital, but the great irony is that human beings have a surprisingly difficult time when it comes to knowing what exactly they are communicating. After you have read this book, you will understand better than ever why that’s the case—why communication is so very, very hard to get right. But you will also have a better understanding, perhaps for the first time, of what other people are actually seeing in”
― Heidi Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It

“Without the ability to consistently and accurately telegraph our thoughts and intentions to others, none of us can succeed—no individual, no team, and no organization. Communication is vital, but the great irony is that human beings have a surprisingly difficult time when it comes to knowing what exactly they are communicating.”
― Heidi Halvorson, No One Understands You and What to Do About It